First Impressions / Robotics;Notes

「ガンヴァレル発進！」 (Ganvareru Hasshin!)
“Gunvarrel Takeoff!”

I honestly have too many diverging opinions about this show now. On one hand, I love the build-up and the anticipation and the whole “destruction of the world” drama. I don’t mind the characters and I think there’s a lot of potential for the show. On the other hand… I think the way that the ending is delivered is not my cup of tea. I don’t really like the way a lot of the development has gone nowhere or is left open-ended and I’m not feeling the whole cheesy atmosphere around robots. It’s understandable that the anime is centered on achieving your dreams, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to connect robots and virtual villain with sisterhood bonds.

Anyway, this episode surpassed my expectations mainly due to the second half that was devoted to Kai and Aki. I’m a sucker for romance! I don’t think the moment was built up exceptionally well – even though I knew it was coming. There were a few hints here and there but I honestly thought that the confession would’ve come from Aki during the finale. Of course, I can always count on Kai for doing the unpredictable and it caught Aki off guard. Totally adorable! I also think that too many stories out there are trying to be untraditional when it comes to romance scenes but very simple confessions and kisses are still the best. He’s leaving his life in Aki’s hands… Sorry Frau and Subaru, maybe next time!

The rest of the episode also came with its ups and downs. Kai, Nae and Airi left to go venture into Kou’s underground lair, only to discover that the contraption that Sawada left with Kai actually activates Kai’s disorder and strains his heart. I don’t know about everyone else – but I’ve seen the aftermath of a heart attack or heart condition and it’s serious business. Especially in a situation that may or may not lead to cardiac arrest. Why doesn’t anyone else (but Aki) see the severity of the situation? To be honest, I love Kai’s determination to drive this robot, but there are other people who can. Possibly people who can drive it better without the use of supernatural powers. Am I being too critical and nitpicky? Even if I am, it’s only because I feel like there are many other solutions and paths that this show could’ve taken. It’s a shame that I’m not enjoying it to my full extent because I don’t agree with the direction that it’s going in.

With all that said, I feel like next week’s episode is just going to tie up all the loose ends and come to a proper conclusion. I don’t want to expect any more epic conclusions since this final arc has already been on the decline for me. It’s not that there are many open-ended questions left; it’s simply the fact that I don’t like the answers they have provided me. Kou wants to see his experiment go through, simply because he is a program and doesn’t know any better. Airi states that he used to be a more kindhearted man… well still not that great of a man if he endangered children on a cruise ship. I guess some people will do anything for the sake of science. The “brainwashing” of Misa and the death of Mizuka also came very abruptly to me. As if “this is it” and I have to accept things at face value. I know they’re not the focal point of the story and they’re more like tools for Kou but their roles could’ve added more value if the audience was given more time to digest the info. In the end, what was up with that Report No. 0 that Misa sent out with Sister Centipede? Kou simply just wrote her off with a short goodbye to the real Airi.

How is Robotics;Notes fairing up to everyone else’s expectations? For those that have read the VN and knew what to expect, is the adaptation up to par?

Full-length images: 04, 10, 15, 21.

46 Comments

  1. Am I the only one that though that the confession really came out of nowhere and was really unnecessary. Its like they did it for the sake of just doing it. There was zero build up to it. It just happened.

    Scardigne
    Reply

  2. I would gladly watch the anime over again rather than touch the VN with a 10-ft pole. The anime is pretty much accomplishing what the VN did, although the VN just tied itself in knots with repetitive flag events, inorganic character situations, & the same old pitiful plot twists.

    The VN was just a waste of time. The anime has smooth transitions, MUCH less useless chatter, & an actually timeline. The VN had to give you a visual timeline because it was literally jumping all over the place.

    The main problem of this show is how its focusing too much on the progression of this dumb plot twist rather than some of the details that would tie up the loose ends – i.e., the nonexistent committee of 300, WTF made Misa killed Kou in the first place (how did she find out he did the SS Anemone shit & how did she find him), & what made Kou go “OH JUST F THE WORLD!!!”. They probably spent 2 minutes explaining all 3 of those combined.

    Don’t make plot twists if you don’t want to explain them!

    Megas
    Reply

  3. Nope nope no KaixAki allowed I don’t care if it was completely obvious from the very beginning. Rather, it’s how obvious the relationship is that makes it uncompelling.

    Sceptile
    Reply

  5. Our expectations for the finale knowing what we do for the series or our expectations of the series as a whole? I don’t even remember why I picked this up five months ago considering it had robots in the title and I can’t stand robot shows – but this has just been so ridiculous from start to finish I couldn’t help but enjoy it. The plot is nothing to write home about, to be certain, but it’s just… a really fun show for some reason.

    anise_punter
    Reply

  6. So he went for Aki…yaay, I’m so rooting for this couple with so much chemis…ah, I can’t finish that sentence. Yeah, that came outta nowhere, but it’s not like it was surprising. Kinda predictable, these things. And annoying, cause I don’t even like Aki that much (Frau is much more interesting).

    Moving on…

    As for how it’s living up to my expectations…I feel it’s a big giant ‘meh’. I mean, I’ve seen the previous shows in this universe, Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, and thus knew how finnicky they can get in quality – Steins;Gate was a masterpiece, imo, whereas Chaos;Head was, well, not so good (maybe that was the adaptation’s fault though). R;N sadly falls into the latter category. I’m just not impressed. The characters, for the most part, aren’t particularly memorable, the robot and conspiracy parts don’t really gel well and after all it’s forever-taking build-up, this is what we get? A mess of a story, motives that are barely explained, cheesy speeches about robots (Aki’s behaviour has been grating on me for a while now – this is just the icing on the cake) and a conclusion I honestly couldn’t care less about? I just want this show to end at this point.

    It’s not the worst anime I’ve ever seen, and it did have some good episodes in there, but overall the whole thing just doesn’t interest me that much. It’s mediocre at best. I very much doubt the final episode will be able to change that impression.

    Dvalinn
    Reply

    1. I honestly agree with you, you summed up a lot of what I thought of it so far. I’m just going to save my overall thoughts for when the series is over and until I can see how they manage to wrap up this series.

      At this point I am just going with the flow and waiting for the series to end. I wouldn’t lie and say that finishing Steins;Gate did not have an overall impact on how disappointed I am with this series when it should have been judged stand-alone. Even then, I feel it is majorly flawed.

      kondee
      Reply

    2. Also fully agree with you hey. The whole show doesnt seem to flow nicely, one moment they are building a big robot for fun(no real practical purpose), then all of a sudden they are deemed as the most qualified people to save the world.

      The romance scene seemed kind of forced,like it was just put in there because every anime needs to have some romance in it. Aki didnt even seem like she wanted to kiss him, like “okay fine,i dont really want to, but the world might end soon,so ill kiss you”.Which doesnt feel romantic at all.

      Also was Aki’s syndrome (where time goes super fast) ever mentioned again? Correct me if im wrong,but i think it was only mentioned once right? So i see no point of it even being introduced in the first place,except to be the opposite of kai’s syndrome. And i still dont understand why this happens to them(unless i missed a logical explaination somewhere)

      I enjoyed the first few episodes since it looked like it had a lot of promise but this is just letting me down every time i watch it.
      Should i even watch steins gate?

      brent
      Reply

      1. Yeah, Aki’s condition really does serve no practical purpose, just another loose thread in this frayed tapestry of a story. And Kai’s powers are just there to occasionally drive the plot along, rather than some defining feature of him. As for why it happened…Kou used some doohickey when experimenting on the boat, or something? I don’t really know either. Nor care.

        Steins;Gate is way better though, and has barely any connecting features with R;N anyway, so I’d advise you to give it a try.

        Dvalinn
        Reply

  8. Mm. I personally actually kind of liked this episode myself? Or maybe it just seems better compared to the previous one.

    For one thing, they kept the cheesiness at a minimum this episode, and had actual movement in both plot and character. I don’t particularly like Aki, but the scene was well-directed, and it’s definitely to her credit that she’s the only one who protests Kai’s Emiya Shirou impression. And at the very least she’s better than Junna.

    Which is not to say that there weren’t groaners as well. While one can vaguely surmise that whatever Misaki did previous episode was the reason for Geji-nee’s sudden breakaway from Kimijima’s control (although that, on it’s own, is sheer lazy plot convenience), the entire rainbow-background Airi/Geji-nee goodbye scene was horrendously overdone. Did I mention the rainbow-background? And while spoilers as to future events may give some kind of reason for Kimijima’s ridiculous behaviour, I can’t get over the sudden appearance of floating gun bots in a show that’s previously stressed the laws of physics. Not to mention – where the heck did those gun bots come from? Both in a ‘where did they build those things’ sense and ‘how the heck did he get them there without someone noticing floating gun bots’ sense.

    Overall, I’d call it a good episode. But it continues the trend of the show attempting to marry real world physics and situation with super robot tropes, and failing to do so.

    Corin
    Reply

    1. Oh, and there’s still the fundamental lack of logic inherent in Misaki’s actions. Presumably she’s under duress with Kimijima threatening her loved ones…. the loved ones who, in the event of the plan succeeding, would seem to have slightly over a 16.6% chance of surviving the aftermath of the plan.

      Sometimes one gets the feeling she and Aki really are sisters. Heh.

      Corin
      Reply

  16. Well, to me the VN is much better than the adaptation. And they have cut a great chunk of story
    during the confrontation with Kimijima. In the VN, Kimijima tries to takeover Airi again by
    revealing the fate of her parents to her.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Kansokusha
    Reply

  21. i feel like every scene in this anime failed to deliver the emotions we were suppose to feel(aside from mizuka’s death) and really the only thing that keeps me going is the fact that it is some kind of sequel to steins;gate

    creep
    Reply

  22. @Cherrie here the other stuff they left out abt KK:

    Show Spoiler ▼

    (Source: tvtropes)

    Will comment on the episode when i finally get the will to watch it lol ^w^;

    d-LaN
    Reply

      2. @d-LaN

        The prelude novel is titled “Senomiya Masaki’s Unpublished Notes” and there’s an on-going
        manga adaptation. The story is centered around the relationship between Misa-nee and
        Kimijima Kou a decade before the events of R;N.

        The following are some of the details about Kimijima I heard from my friend.
        Show Spoiler ▼

        Kansokusha
        Reply

  24. Well…I don’t know why but the anime staff didn’t have any clue how to build up emotional scenes.

    There are too many stuff to made which wasn’t possible to put all of them into limit episodes I can understand it, but they chose to delete tons of character development and ruined some of the best emotional moment…

    Although the story itself didn’t that promise as it seems to be and I don’t think they can made any better explain on anything since maybe only one episode left, the VN itself at least has a very reasonable description on the relationship of Kou, Airi and Geji Sister and they all got deleted and left pretty the same but somewhat uninspiring plot twist here…

    I don’t know if that was comfortable for lots of people here to read the 30~40+ hours of repetitive dialogues but you can feeling emotions from simple pictures and voices when you play VN if you can (I mean you REALLY can) read japanese…such a shame here since that was pretty the only part of this project get right.

    name
    Reply

  25. I’m not entirely sure about the direction and pacing of R;N. The draggy middle could have been better paced so the ending doesn’t feel like a ton of material squeezed into a short few episodes.

    However, I like the characters.

    Annoying Aki – for her optimism in everything. Put her in the “Shiki” forest full of evil and on fire and throw in aliens and rampaging Ohmu for good measure, she’ll STILL see the good side of the situation.

    Kai – yay, a male lead that you don’t want to slap senseless for being such a loser. I dunno, so many teenage male leads really grate. He didn’t.

    Frau – cracks me up all the time. Her Waifu! was the best yet.

    Junna – okay, we get why she was scared of robots, but still waiting for character development here. Maybe Kai’s heart will conk out and she’ll grow a pair and pilot the Gunvarrel to victory while Aki gets handed a situation that isn’t going to be her happy ending and no rousing speech will revive the dead. Or maybe I’m just too damn cynical to believe that this declaration of love isn’t a (hamfisted) setup for something tragic. [not a spoiler, my own sick-sad-worldopinion]

    Airi – I preferred the AI version. Lots more fun.

    Mae – the cute Jaxa girl that can take care of herself and….
    whoa…
    waidamminit – Nae… Nae… Mayuri’s friend!? Shy, pigtails on top, and pink pinafore dress? HER?!
    [damn, it took me that long to figure it out? – slaps head]

    [thinks: so if Nae is that old here, Kurisu and Okabe will be something like 30, married, bunch of nerdy kids…. yikes! doesn’t bear thinking about]

    dokidoki
    Reply

  26. I think they could’ve avoided the cheesyness here and there… It’s still an enjoyable series, but some things are simply not conceivable… The very premise of the show could have been written better if you ask me. It’s simply doesn’t seem possible for a bunch of high schooler to build such a complex machine as a giant robot; at least for how seriously you’re supposed to take the series. And I feel the “robots” element could be integrated better in the plot. Oh well. Let’s just enjoy the last episode.

    lorenzo
    Reply

  29. One jarring plothole: you have a laser powerful enough to make a giant frigging robot move…
    just aim it on the rocket on the launch pad dammit! Ronnie Raygun is turning in his grave!

    ewok40k
    Reply

  30. My main gripe with R;N is that, for a “Science Adventure”, it doesn’t really do that well from the scientific point of view. Subaru is probably the only person in the whole show who cares about such silly things as engineering, while the rest just use their technomagic to explain everything. Kinda reminds me of S;G, though it did a much better job explaining the gadgets and the whole time-traveling idea (even if some parts of it were still borderline silly). And they didn’t have to retort to MONOPOLE RAINS to make the single most important construct of the show work.

    SingerOfW
    Reply

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